Tag Archives: Bairbre Flood

Cork-based Journalist and human rights activist Bairbre Flood (above) has completed an hour-long radio documentary on Islam In Ireland (available to listen above or at link below).

Bairbre writes:

The radio documentary wasn’t broadcast yet I was getting messages that I shouldn’t be even discussing the subject as a white westerner.

Islam is often seen as a racial construct – and both the xenophobes and the social justice warriors buy into the orientalist view of Islam as a racial identity, not an idea (or set of ideas).

It’s very difficult to have a conversation about the doctrine of Islam within these parameters – everyone tiptoeing around the core tenets, either afraid they’ll inflame the bigots or of being labelled ‘Islamophobic’.

But surely we can hold Islam to the same standards we would fundamentalist Christianity for example – or Catholicism, or Scientology? It’s not a criticism of Muslim people themselves to examine the religion of Islam.

Perhaps the most well known mosque in Ireland, the Irish Islamic Cultural Centre (Clonskeagh Mosque) houses the headquarters of the European Council for Fatwa and Research which issued two particularly worrying fatwas – in 2003, a fatwa stating the punishment for apostasy is death, and one in 2004 stating that all gays should be killed.

The Dublin and Cork Islamic Cultural Centres have been given hundreds of thousands of euros from the al Maktoub Foundation in the UAE, and their particular kind of Wahhabi Islam has a political aim, not just a religious or spiritual one (the ‘Vatican of Islam in Ireland’ as one commentator dubbed them).

The day after the Charlie Hebdo attck in 2015, Selim was on national radio urging people not to link the attacks with Islam and threatening legal action on any Irish journalist or media outlet which printed the cartoon cover of the magazine published in honour of the people who’d just been killed.

Of course, the IICC doesn’t represent all muslims in Ireland (or even all Sunni Muslims) – there’s a large Ahmadiyya mosque in Galway and also a substantial Sufi community in Dublin. There’s over fifty mosques or prayer rooms throughout the country, most of these funded by the congregation themselves.

There’s over fifty different nationalities within the Muslim community and within that huge differences in how strict individuals are, and variations in how they practice their faith.

Some don’t pray at all, but still identify strongly as Muslim – like many people in Ireland who still identify as Catholic, but rarely go to mass andonly nominally believe in its doctrine. But even with all that in mind, there has been very little research into what Irish Muslims believe and how strongly they believe it.

The only opinion poll on Muslim attitudes was carried out for the Irish Independent and RTÉ’s Prime Time in 2006 and it found that more than a third (36%) would prefer Ireland to be ruled under Sharia law and more than half of young Muslims (57%) believe Ireland should become an Islamic State.

Then there’s the kinds of speakers that are being invited over here.

In May, 2017 the Cork Islamic Information Centre with Discover Islam put on a talk, ‘How To Live With Your Neighbour in Western Countries’ by Uthman Lateef who in 2007 told students at Queen Mary University in the UK: “We don’t accept homosexuality. We hate it because Allah hates it”.

In March 2016 this mosque on Shandon Street invited a speaker called Shady Al-Suleiman, who once ended a talk in Birmingham in 2014 with ‘“Give victory to all the Mujahideen all over the world. Oh Allah, prepare us for the jihad” and who 2010 organised a conference which featured a talk via phone by Anwar Al-Awlaki (of Al-Qaeda).

In May 2015, Abdurraheem Green gave a talk ‘The Prophet and his Message’ at this same Cork mosque. Green was cancelled from an event at a Montreal university in 2011 after concerns were raised over statements he made about how men may treat their wives: he said, “The husband is allowed – to prevent her from evil – to provide some type of physical force”.

When I emailed the Cork Dawah Centre about these speakers, this was their response:

‘Let me reassure you, we would not have allowed anyone to speak if we had known of any extremist views that they may have had in the past. When I looked into it in the past, as
you’re not the first to question us, many of the individuals and the organisations as a whole have come out and opposed previously held ideas. Which unsurprisingly hasn’t been widely publicised.

Members of the local community including the Gardai and various Lord Mayors have attended these events. Speakers when coming to the centre submit an outline of what they are planning to speak on so that it can be reviewed.

Most of the speakers we have invited in the past have been requested to speak on the importance of manners, not harming others, helping and caring for others in society, etc, as this is considered to be half the faith and the heaviest thing on the last day. This does not fit with the opinions you’ve expressed below. I hope I’ve allayed any fears you may have.’

The kinds of speakers being invited to mosques here and the influence of Wahhabi Islam is only one part of the problem – but at least they are in the public eye and open to scrutiny.

The even deeper problem is the more than forty Irish muslims who’ve gone to fight with ISIS since 2014, some of whom have started returning to Ireland. There’s also over 70 on a watch list, suspected of providing logistical support to terrorist groups in Europe and no anti-radicalisation programme in place here.

‘Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. There is a clear relationship between fundamentalism, terrorism, and the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy…The West must stop ascribing any and all discussion of these issues to “Islamophobia.” Or do people want to accuse me — an Islamic scholar — of being an Islamophobe too?’ –

This isn’t to demonise in any way the thousands of Muslims living here – or to diminish the very real effect anti-Muslim bias can have on their lives, but at the same time we can start holding Islam to the same standards as we’ve done in recent years here in Ireland with Catholicism, and strive for a similar insistence on the primacy of secular values.

It’s also important for us to provide a safe environment for Muslims to critique their religion (unlike in many parts of the world where it can mean dishonour, arrest, beatings and even death).

Ireland has an opportunity to be a safe house for Muslims to publish their ideas – for ex-Muslims to feel free to tell their experiences – and for moderate, liberal Muslims to find support and solidarity here.

Human rights activist Bairbre Flood, from Cork, has created an hour-long radio documentary, The Hungry Road, in which she speaks to people seeking refuge who are subsisting in the makeshift camp in Calais, France.

Bairbre writes:

The police have stopped volunteers bringing in building materials so with the influx of around 70 new people a day, many are living in cramped tents.

One medic from Ireland, Elena Lydon, who regularly works in the camp,said that ‘for the first time people were coming up saying they were hungry to us in the first aid caravans.’

Most of us know of all this, as Calais has been substantially reported on this last year, but what are people really like in the camp? Where have they come from – geographically, culturally, personally?

‘The Hungry Road’, a reference to the Irish famine, is an attempt to get behind the statistics and hear what some individuals have to say about living in what most described as ‘hell’.

Everyone I talked to had endured incredibly traumatic events in both their original countries and along the road seeking refuge in Europe.

Blocked at the final hurdle, many are now seeking asylum in France, but have to wait in the camp while their application is being processed.

Others are trying desparately to reach family members in Britain where they feel people are more sympathetic to refugees and not as racist as the French.

Many speak English already and say that there are better job and study opportunities there.

Still, others have heard that the asylum process is much quicker than in France and they will be able to apply for family reunification for loved ones who could get no further than Lebanon, Turkey and other countries.

Whatever their reasons, and there are many – they have the right to be treated with respect and allowed to choose the country which they feel will be best for them and their families. That’s what Irish people have been doing for generations.

There are about 50,000 undocumented Irish migrants working in the US illegally. Imagine if Irish people in the States were treated the way the people in Calais are treated?

Police regularly tear-gas the camp and almost everyone I interviewed had been beaten or pepper-sprayed by the CRS. One man told me how a police officer took one of his shoes when he caught him near the town. Another, of how he was pepper-sprayed in the face at the train station.

And the utter feeling of neglect is palpable in an EU that spends more on border fences, tear-gas, scanners, dogs and razor wire than it does on caring for peoples basic needs or allowing them safe passage.

How can we justify that? What is it like for people already suffering, to have to deal with this abuse and neglect?

Human rights activist Bairbre Flood, from Cork, is just back from the refugee camp in Calais, France.

She writes:

The French are out walking their dogs every evening. We see them on the streets minding their dogs while, some miles down the road, people are living and dying in the camp. Will they say they didn’t know what was going on when their children ask them? Will we say we didn’t know what was going on when our children ask?

Driving through Calais on the first night, groups of men walked through the shuttered town on their desperate mission to jump the train and find refuge in England. Ghost-like, from another world, their faces exhausted and determined. Many of these people will fall off the trains, sucked up into the tunnel and forgotten by all but their friends and family who see this happening and still have to go on. Why would someone risk life and limb to get to England?

A man from Afghanistan showed me a scar from his wrist to his elbow which he’d gotten trying to jump the train. ‘I’m not trying anymore. I will stay here for now. I’m here 6 months, but I can’t go home. The Taliban will kill me, it’s too dangerous to go home.’

He was clearing an area to set up a café on the camp. Whenever we passed that day he was clearing rubbish, filling in soil. He told us the Irish could eat there anytime, for helping him clean up the space. ‘I have to do something or I’ll go crazy.’ He had soft eyes, a warm face. His friend started talking to us.

‘When I was 12 my father sold our land so we could escape. When he was coming back he was robbed and murdered. Since then I’ve been wandering. I got to England and worked there, but they arrested me one day and deported me back to Afghanistan.

‘I came all the way back here, walking for months. In Hungary they beat me and put me in jail, but I know how to get around.’

He took a drag from his cigarette and grimaced. He must have had some creativity and strength to survive even this long. I thought back to when I was 12 and what I would have done. I don’t think I’d have lasted a year with all that’s stacked against ‘migrants’ in this Dickensian parallel universe.

We heard many stories of horrendous boat journeys, months walking across Europe – detained in each country, sometimes jailed or beaten by police. And then arriving in Calais to absolute neglect.

Apart from citizen aid, they would have nothing at all. As it is, there are few toilets (overflowing), E.coli in the couple of water taps, rubbish piling up and sporadic food/clothes distributions. There’s also incredible people who’ve built a library, a church/community centre, cafés, shops and restaurants – again, the creativity and strength of the people living here is mind blowing.

Suzanne’s café is a little oasis.

‘I want it to be somewhere people feel safe and can relax,’ Suzanne’s husband tells us. ‘We came by boat from Libya. It cost thousands for the boat trip, but we had to do it. We couldn’t stay.’

They brought out sweet coffee and tea while we were talking. Everywhere we went, people offered us water, tea, coffee, food, whatever they had – which was often almost nothing.

This generosity and welcome is in stark contrast to how the French authorities treat them. On the first day there, some of our team came across the police pepper-spraying women crossing a bridge. They leaned out of the squad car and sprayed right into their faces, just as these women were walking. You can see in the video, above, it was a completely unprovoked attack.

We also heard first-hand stories of beatings by the police, dogs being set upon them and detention and torture in cells.

‘We’re in the 21st century, but David Cameron is in another age.’ one Sudanese man said to us, ‘Why does he do what he does? He’s a donkey. Every night I go to the train. They took the muzzle off the dog, they beat us. Our sisters fall, they’re electrocuted, we are being killed.’

His friends stand around and shake their heads, they all ask us why we don’t want them.

We came back to Ireland after just four days on camp. None of us wanted to leave. It’s hard to describe the feeling of leaving people to this existence, of knowing what’s going on right in the heart of our so-called democratic continent. The trucks continue their journeys safely and people are trapped or attempting dangerous escapes.

‘We don’t even want human rights at this stage,’ one guy told us, ‘We’d settle for animal rights. The way you treat your dogs, we’d be happy with that.’